"Yet the parts of this country with the highest mobility rates — like Pittsburgh, Seattle and Salt Lake City — have rates roughly as high as those in Denmark and Norway, two countries at the top of the international mobility rankings."

Umm... Charles, explain again why Seattle is not great? Because even Denmark and Norway suck, I guess?

@4: yes, yes, yes, it's like 50x safer to fly to Minneapolis than to drive there, and the odds are just getting better since we've had over a decade without a widebody domestic crash. I know all this. I just hate turning my fate 100% over to somebody that I don't know, who may or may not be a stickler for little things like what landing speed he/she should use.

Also, though it's a statistical oddity, I've had exactly as many of my friends die in car crashes (1) as have died in plane crashes (a friend who was with Senator Wellstone in Eveleth.)

I've pointed out that the majority of Catholics and mainline Christians support marriage equality (http://jezebel.com/5835789/poll-shows-ma…) and been told it doesn't matter until the churches themselves officially support it. I can point out that Pew says that while only 6% of scientists are Republicans, 33% believe in God and another 18% believe in a "higher power:" http://www.people-press.org/2009/07/09/p… but when somebody who I respect like Fnarf is deep in denial on the existence of liberal Christian scientists, what hope do I have with people that I don't know?

No, if we're lucky, we're told we're apologists or we are slapped with the NALT label (which is just an all purpose 21st century "Uncle Tom" ad hominem.) If we're unlucky, our existence is denied and it's assumed we're really just John Birch Society sock puppets.

@28: The PA law is very different from the WA law. Here's what it says: "Discrimination is prohibited in admission decisions; however, the charter school may limit admission to a particular grade level or area of concentration and my set reasonable criteria to evaluate prospective students, consistent with the charter."

My original point was that the lawsuit is exhaustive in its list of complaints, yet it doesn't try to make the argument that charter schools are exclusive in their admittance. The news stories you cite are in fact disturbing, but if these aren't isolated instances but rather a broad problem, I would like to see evidence that the very deep pocketed, very litigious teacher unions are willing to present in court.